Page 67 of After All The Wreckage

I would have bought him anything today. A motorcycle he couldn’t drive for another few years. The expensive Mac computer he’d been hinting about. Just having him here, after not knowing?—

No. I wouldn’t let myself go back to those hours of terror.

But those thoughts reminded me of why Rory was in the apartment, and my smile disappeared.

“Monte wants to hire you to find Demi,” I said.

Her eyes grew wide and all the lightness that we’d finally gotten into the room disappeared, making me wish I could take it back but knowing I couldn’t.

I joined my brother in the kitchen, both of us leaning against the cabinets so we faced Rory at the counter with her laptop open. It struck me how much it looked like she belonged there. As if she’d been there a thousand times before while we’d had similar conversations.

“This morning you wanted me as far away from the two of you as possible. I was the one to tell you I wasn’t walking away, so what changed?” she asked. Her gaze landed on Monte instead of me, and they exchanged some unspoken words that had my eyes narrowing. What had they talked about?

“Whether I like it or not,” I said, “you’re involved. You’re in the vision. We might as well agree to be on the same side.”

“I’m not shooting Dunn,” she said firmly.

“What if… what if he’s like… threatening Demi or me or Gage. Would you shoot him then?” Monte asked around a mouthful of ice cream.

Rory hesitated. “If anyone was threatening another person’s life, shooting them wouldn’t be my first response.”

“What if they had a gun to someone’s forehead?”

“Wait. You never said he had a gun,” I grunted out at my brother.

Monte shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone but Rory with one. I just want to know what would make her shoot him.”

“If it’s between me and the congressman, if he was aiming at me and I had no other options, I would shoot him like I’ve been trained to do. But I promise you, it willalwaysbe my last option.”

Monte seemed calmer than I’d seen him in days, especially with visions haunting him. I was glad but also confused. He nodded. “Okay, then. You’re hired.”

Rory’s lips twitched and a huff of a laugh escaped me. “I don’t think you can actually hire her. I had to sign a contract, and you aren’t old enough.”

Monte shrugged. “Okay, so you hire her.”

“Technically, you already have,” she said. “The contract you signed said I’d work your brother’s case until it was solved to your satisfaction. You have to be the one to end it.”

“So the invoice you gave me this morning?”

She shrugged. “I was upset. What can I say?”

“You didn’t take the money.”

She shook her head. “And I won’t. I’m not really charging you.”

“You’re not working for us for free.”

She ignored me, punching away at something on her computer as she’d done almost the entire day before. Monte moved away from me to join Rory at the counter, sitting next to her on a stool.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“You do nothing,” she said. “I don’t want you anywhere near Dunn. I don’t want the men who took you thinking they need to do so again. I haven’t heard what happened. So, if you feel up to it, could you tell me? Anything they said, anything yousaw might be more important than you know. But first, do you recognize this man?”

I eased over to the counter, leaning across it to look at the image she was showing my brother. A huge man filled the screen. Military, by the looks of him. Sunglasses blocked his eyes, but his face was still grim.

Monte shook his head. “They always had their faces covered, and they were big, but this guy looks like a monster.”

Rory nodded. “That’s what I was thinking as well. He’s as wide as a truck, and while the men who grabbed you were big, they didn’t look like pro wrestlers.”